


take my heart and make it strong, babe

by holtzmanns



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, feelings tm, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 14:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18918841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtzmanns/pseuds/holtzmanns
Summary: It should scare Brooke, how different it feels with Vanessa. How he doesn’t want him to ever leave, how he now wants mornings with their tangled limbs and synchronized breathing more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.Or: Brooke learns how to 'relationship'.





	take my heart and make it strong, babe

**Author's Note:**

> Endless gratitude and love for @beanierose and @writworm42, who are the BEST and the most amazing cheerleaders that anyone could ever ask for.

They talk in hushed voices in the back of a van one morning. Vanessa’s legs are strewn across Brooke’s lap, displaying the comfort that they’ve developed with one another in a short period of time. Brooke’s fingers trace patterns on Vanessa’s knee, an ineffective distraction from the realization that the remaining time for filming truly isn’t as endless as it feels.

“Everything is going to completely change. You’re gonna back to touring and I’ll go back to Nashville to pretend like I didn’t just mysteriously disappear for a couple months, until the season is announced at least. We won’t have this anymore.” Brooke’s voice comes out in a rush; his unsaid thoughts spilling out once they have a chance to spool free from the iron grip he previously kept on them.

“What is it that we have now? Do the cameras and constant supervision feel like the equivalent of modern romance to you? It can be better afterwards. Planes exist, Mary.” Vanessa’s eyes search his face, not pleading but rather trying to make him understand.

It’s not like Brooke doesn’t know, logically, that what they have right now is not the most ideal situation. The stolen kisses, the PAs pulling them apart, the whispered conversations all create a promise of _more_ , of being able to focus on each other without a competition looming above their heads, threatening to crush them at a moment’s notice should they ignore it.

Vanessa shrugs. “Like I told A’keria, if we wanna make it work, it can work. There’s no rulebook saying that we can’t.”

Brooke nods in a way that is as unconvincing as it feels, his mind preoccupied by thoughts of planes and long distance and Facetime calls instead of being together in person. Vanessa sighs, leaning back against his seat and raising an eyebrow at Brooke.

“Look, do you want this to end? Us?”

“What?” Brooke’s head snaps up. Was there something he had missed in Vanessa’s earlier words? “ _No,_ why would you-”

“Exactly. I don’t either. We owe it to ourselves to try at least, y’know? Don’t get in your head and shit.”

Vanessa nudges his shoulder, intertwining their fingers and the conversation drops for now at least, to be revisited at a later time.

That is, until Vanessa is eliminated later that day, and Brooke has to kiss him goodbye (for now, not forever) in front of the judging panel and the entire world. Brooke tries to express everything that he’s wanted to but hasn’t yet ( _we’re not done, we have to try, I don’t want to lose you yet)_ with the way he grabs Vanessa’s face and pulls him in close, reluctant to let him go.

* * *

Brooke films his last confessionals the next day, along with a makeup tutorial and a _Whatcha Packin’_ video with Michelle. The cameras aren’t a reminder of the competition anymore, he’s done; he’s booked his ticket to the finale.

He packs up his things in the workroom alongside the rest of the top four, the tension slowly beginning to lift from all of their shoulders. Silky and Yvie are already joking around, trying on one another’s wigs and doing impressions of each other, neither under pressure to prove themselves anymore.

It makes Brooke smile while attempting to fit yet another heeled boot into one of his suitcases. He’s not quite clear on the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome, but the realization that he’s truly going to miss the filming environment comes as a surprise.

However, it doesn’t come close to comparing to what is waiting for him once he leaves.

Brooke stumbles out of the van with the rest of the top four once they reach the hotel that evening, without PAs following at their heels for the first time since they began filming. Vanessa is waiting for him in the lobby, leaning against a couch in a snapback and denim shirt that are both so quintessentially _him_. It takes everything in Brooke not to practically run towards him, especially when his face lights up upon seeing the four of them.

Brooke grabs Vanessa’s face upon reaching him, ignoring the whoops and hollers from Silky and A’keria and pulling him in for a kiss that feels lighter than the one from the previous night, one that is filled with freedom and happiness and unspoken promises.

“Hey, stranger.”

Brooke snorts at Vanessa’s attempt at a quip; his endearing man (could he call him _his_?) whose attempts to be suave were nothing short of adorable.

“You’re still here.” Brooke phrases it as a statement rather than a question, unable to hide the smile that’s absolutely taken over his face. Even though it’s only been a day since he’s seen Vanessa, he’s _missed_ him.

Vanessa grins up at him, tugging on the collar of his jacket to pull him closer.

“Not planning on letting you get away from me that easy.”

Vanessa rises on his tiptoes to kiss him again until A’keria’s voice interrupts them (‘If y’all don’t take those mushy noises and get a fucking _room-'_ ), and they pull back, all smug grins while ignoring the pseudo retching sounds coming from the rest of the top four.

“What do you say we heed A’keria’s advice?” Brooke raises an eyebrow at Vanessa, a challenge and a proposition all at once.

He smirks back, eager eyes betraying to Brooke exactly what he’s thinking about. “I’d say that’s the smartest shit you’ve said all day.”

* * *

Their first time is rushed and desperate, all gasps and bruising touches, the previous six weeks of restraint leading them to barely make it to the bed. Their second time is spent exploring one another, slower as the realization that they’re alone and can _do_ this begins to seep in.

Brooke discovers the sensitive area on Vanessa’s collarbone that makes him gasp every time that he runs his tongue over it. He learns that Vanessa’s ribs color with hickeys faster than any other part of his body. He finds out that Vanessa’s stream of words disappear when they’re together like this, replaced with gasps and whines and occasional stutters of ‘more’.

Brooke drinks in every part of him, committing each touch and sound to memory and filing them away safe in his heart.

Vanessa pulls sounds out of him, too. The existing familiarity, almost intimacy, that they have with one another shines through in the way that Vanessa already understands all of Brooke’s nonverbal reactions to his touch, and figures out how to overwhelm his senses in a way that he’s never experienced with anyone else.

Vanessa knows how to push him until he’s spent and breathless, their first night a mosaic of sleep and sex and conversations whispered in between them. They’re both awake as the sun rises, casting an orange glow through the window and onto the white, hotel issued bed sheets (Brooke can’t stop thinking about Vanessa coming to Nashville after this, in his room and in _his_ bed with his soft grey sheets and cats asleep on top).

Brooke stirs at eleven after a few hours of sleep that are the most restful he’s had in weeks, trading stress from the competition for another, smaller body curled into his side, breathing softly and warming his soul from the inside out.

He’s never stayed over after a one night stand, making it an internal rule to remain as compartmentalized as possible. He’s kicked more men out of his own bed than he’s cared to count, the moment of connection gone after he’s gotten the physical satisfaction that he’s needed.

It should scare Brooke, how different it feels with Vanessa. How he doesn’t want him to ever leave, how he now wants mornings with their tangled limbs and synchronized breathing more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.

But it doesn’t. Not yet. Brooke reckons it’ll settle in eventually, the way his anxiety always does, making him second guess his decisions and ruin perfectly good things with absolutely no qualms.

Right now though, he has his boyfriend (his _boyfriend,_ should he call him that?) waking up in his arms, gravely voice laced with sleep and bleary eyes that are looking at him with a softness that he hasn’t ever seen from anyone else. And things are okay somehow, for now.  

* * *

Brooke returns to Nashville with a mind exhausted from the competition and a heart that has grown to accommodate another person. He goes back to Play, back to his old gigs where the deafening cheering from a knowing audience feels like a homecoming. He jokes at the microphone with his fellow queens about all the reasons he was away for a month and a half: a medical emergency with an extended recovery time, a trip to Toronto to see family, a _very_ long nap. The audience eats it up; chants of _‘season eleven’_ and ‘ _love your hair, hope you win’_ ringing in his ears.

He spills secrets small enough to keep his NDA intact in the dressing room to his Nashville sisters, telling them about the PAs and the food and the tiny hotel room he was sequestered in for a majority of his time away. He grins when fellow queen Aurora asks him if he picked up any trade along the way, a grin that only grows bigger when he feels his phone vibrate in his hand with a text from Vanessa.

Brooke used to pride himself on being an independent person in the past, not having to rely on anyone else. It feels strange now though, heading home on his own and not having Vanessa at his side the way they would walk arm in arm during filming. He can’t turn to Vanessa anymore to make an inside joke or share a knowing glance, can’t go to him for a hug and a kiss that would undoubtedly calm his nerves.

They’ve really been trying these first few days that they’ve been on opposite sides of the country, texts and Facetimes to compensate for their lack of physical proximity. Brooke calls him as he enters his own front door, dropping the bags containing his drag from his arms onto the ground and scooping up his cat Henry in their place.

Vanessa picks up his Facetime call in a dressing room of his own, still at his gig in a time zone two hours behind. Brooke can tell that Vanessa is a few drinks in already by the way he yells into the phone even more so than usual, brushing out his blonde wig that is still on his head with his fingers. “Hi, baby! How was your show?”

Brooke has never been one for pet names, but hearing them fall from Vanessa’s lips makes his heart do a decidedly undignified flip. Vanessa’s making him soft, turning him into the type of person that he always used to make fun of. Brooke can’t even be mad about it, not when it’s coming from him.

God, would past Brooke ever judge him now.

He drops Henry on his kitchen counter and pulls out some leftovers from lunch out of his fridge, stomach rumbling despite the late hour. “It was good, it’s strange to be back. Sort of nice. Though all the queens keep asking me to dish.”

Vanessa’s voice reverberates around his kitchen from his phone speakers almost immediately. “You keep that pretty mouth of yours _shut._ ”

“Hey, I’m not worried about myself, I’m more worried about you spilling all the secrets.” Brooke gives a pointed look at his phone screen.

“What are you talking about, I’m like a motherfuckin sphinx. I can be quiet and subtle.”

Brooke snorts as he sinks down onto his couch, food in one hand and phone in the other. “Epitome of subtlety. _Down,_ Henry.”

Henry meows at him from his lap, unperturbed in his quest to eat Brooke’s food. Brooke’s missed his giant cat with an unending appetite, no matter how much he has to move Henry from his lap and back onto the couch.

Vanessa sticks his tongue out at Brooke on screen. “Hey, it’ll be kinda fun, all the sneaking around to come. We can be like Justin and Britney.”

‘You mean matching denim outfits?” Brooke asks, taking a bite of his noodles. “We already did that.”

“Shut up. We looked good, though.”

“Yeah, we did.”

Brooke can’t help but grin. Sure, they were like teenagers with the coordinated outfits, but it was _fun._

Brooke watches as Vanessa rests his elbows on a table covered with makeup products, leaning in closer to the camera and taking up more of Brooke’s screen. “Look at your snuggly ass, in sweatpants already after the gig. I miss you. Even that god-awful grey beanie you’re wearing.”

“You said you liked my hat!”

“Yeah, the first fifteen or so times you wore it. Now I can’t tell if it’s grey because of the colour or because all of the fuckin’ dirt.”

Brooke makes a face, and Vanessa lets out a cackle that comes through the phone loud and clear.

“I miss you too,” Brooke finally concedes, “despite your clear underappreciation of my fashion sense.”

Vanessa pouts at him on the screen. “Why you gotta be so far?”

He doesn’t get to answer the question before Vanessa turns away from the camera, talking to someone at standing the door. Vanessa turns back, locks of his current blonde wig dramatically flipping over his shoulder.

“I gotta bounce. One last number for the kids.”

Vanessa blows him a kiss before hanging up, Brooke’s goodbye getting cut off as the call disconnects.

Brooke’s feels a pull in his chest, a pull all the way from a dressing room in a drag bar in WeHo. He knows, logically, that being far away is going to be a lot of work. Not being in the same city for a majority of the time would present challenges to even the strongest of pairings, let alone his and Vanessa’s still-new relationship.

_Were_ they in a relationship? Brooke thinks so, at least. Vanessa had clearly expressed in the past how he wanted to keep it going, whatever it is that they started. Brooke does too.

He hasn’t done this before. He feels like a bat, stumbling blindly but without any echolocation to guide him. It’s stupid; he’s a thirty two year old man who still hasn’t figured out how to fucking date. He’s not embarrassed by it; he just wishes that he knew the right things to do.

Vanessa had let out an _aww_ when Brooke informed him of that fact one morning in the van on the way to set, prompting a gentle shove. Vanessa didn’t care though, finding the whole thing, in his words, ‘sweet’.

It’s nice though, that Vanessa is the one he can start to figure things out with. He knows that any and all teasing from him is lighthearted and can be easily countered with a read right back.

Brooke’s familiar grey sheets are a small comfort when he climbs into bed later that night. It feels weird sleeping alone, despite the fact that he’s only spent a couple nights with Vanessa in total so far. He wonders what it would be like, sleeping in the same bed every night. Wonders if he would get tired of it. He remembers how well he slept with his arms wrapped around Vanessa and realizes, probably not.

He knows he’s fucking whipped already. It bothers him, slightly, that Vanessa has so quickly knocked down the walls that he’s worked to build. A small part of his brain is telling him to run, to close off his soul and protect it from ever getting hurt from what they have. He pushes it down as much as he can. It’s about time, at a ripe 32 years, that he opens up a little more.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at @plastiquetiaras on tumblr.


End file.
